


Ambiguity

by JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mutual Pining, these boys are clueless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3950764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle/pseuds/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John searches for clarity in his life</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John

**Author's Note:**

> This will eventually have three chapters: This one, from John's perspective, another from Sherlock's, and a third when they actually see each other. Updates on Saturday or Sunday/ Rating/tags may change

John Watson was not an ambiguous man.  
He had lived his life in a linear fashion, going from point A to point B with no dithering and no sidetracks. When he made a choice, he stuck to it, and he sought out situations where the lines of communication and command were clear.  
It was one way to keep the chaos of the world around him -- the world of family falling apart, of screaming matches and alcoholism and all-too-expected tragedies -- from coming too close, from scarring him too deeply.  
So he went from school to uni and studied medicine, joined the army to help pay for it and learned he liked knowing he could count on his people to carry out his orders, just as he carried out those that came to him.  
John Watson was a man of decision. It was a trait that served him well as a surgeon and as an officer. In his experience, taking too long to decide on a course of action became its own decision, most often the wrong one. John Watson knew he and those who depended on him, his soldiers and his patients, were better off if he made up his mind and made his move.  
So what, John Watson wondered, was he doing here?  
******  
John sat in his chair, the squishy red armchair that had only ever been his since he moved in with Sherlock more than five years ago now, rubbed at his temples and then leaned his head back and flexed his fingers along the arms of the chair.  
It seemed that ever since he met Sherlock, he had lost the thread of clarity in his life. Once he had been a soldier and a doctor; now he was a part-time locum GP, barely making enough to contribute to the more than reasonable rent at 221B Baker Street, a home he had only because of his … flatmate? best friend? partner? Who was off at the moment doing God knew what, for God knew what reason.  
John Watson was a fair man, and he couldn’t really blame Sherlock for muddying the clear path he thought he would follow. A sniper’s bullet in Afghanistan had done that, taking from him two careers at once and obliterating the road in front of him in a cloud of Afghan dust. That bullet deposited him on the scrap heap of life, in a beige bed-sit with a therapist, a laptop and a gun. He’d thought the gun would be his way out, but he hadn’t quite gotten that far when Mike Stamford, of all people, showed him another route.  
Sherlock had burned so bright in his vision, and he wanted so much more than he had in his life, so he reached out and tried to grab the brass ring that first night. Sherlock had let him down gently, more gently than John ever saw Sherlock let anyone down again, and went on to let him into his life.  
Then nothing was clear. It started just after he moved in, when Sherlock introduced him as his friend and John said he was his colleague and then saw the hurt on the self-proclaimed sociopath’s face. Their relationship never moved past platonic, no matter how much John wished it would and everyone else thought it had. Because while there was nothing of a sexual nature, no kisses or caresses, there was plenty of standing too close and looking too long and the casual intimacy of sharing food and a bathroom and once, handcuffs.  
And it was unclear and ambiguous but Sherlock shone like the only star in the night sky, so John kept his eyes fixed on him and watched Sherlock leave him behind. Apparently, when Sherlock let John into his life, the entree went only so far.  
****  
But John couldn’t leave. He’d tried. Christ, had he tried, after Sherlock left him, permanently, John thought. He’d found Mary (or, in her story, she’d found him) and he set out once again on a clear path: boyfriend to fiance to husband and father. At the same time he went from locum to full-time GP to running his own surgery.  
When Sherlock came back (now that was a turn-up he wasn’t expecting), Sherlock seemed to accept the changed circumstances. He allowed John back into his life, if not as far as before, and their the previous casual intimacy became something to hide behind closed curtains. But Sherlock and Mary got along, and if he didn’t feel the sense of purpose he felt when he was nothing but Sherlock’s …. assistant? sidekick? sounding board? .... he at least knew where he was going.  
Until he got there, married and, Sherlock said, about to be a father. By the way, the high-functioning sociopath said, I love you, and the sunny garden path with the picket fence and the rose bushes changed into a choking nightmare of thorns that John wanted to run from.  
But when John Watson made a decision, he followed through, so he cycled to work every day to clear his head and get some air and wondered if he was imagining Mary’s playful sense of humor turning towards sarcasm. He wondered what Sherlock, once his lodestar, was doing, but Sherlock didn’t return one text, then two, and he didn’t want Mary to think him even more pathetic, snuffling around after Sherlock like a puppy after his master.  
Then, in the space of 24 hours, he’d found Sherlock clearly using, been humiliated by a media magnate, watched the man who said he loved him not a month ago pretend to love a woman (Janine, Mary’s friend Janine) to gain access to an office, tried to hold Sherlock’s blood in his body after he was shot, and celebrated Shrlock’smost unlikely survival.  
Within a week, he learned that it was Mary (bubbly, blond, baby-bearing Mary) who had all but killed Sherlock, despite (because of?) his love for the man. And her name wasn’t Mary. And she had been an assassin. Apparently, his path to suburban middle-age was not as clear as he believed, but then it was Sherlock who would not let him step off of it, not until the baby was born.  
Go back to her, John, Sherlock had said. She loves you, and you can be happy. Then Sherlock had blown Magnussen’s head off, for Mary, he said, and John knew he couldn’t be happy.   
After that, Sherlock was going to leave again, and to John it looked like he didn’t think he was coming back. Sherlock told Mary to keep John “in trouble” and she smiled like she’d won, and John felt any lingering affection for her drain out of his heart, through his stomach, which rolled over and settled into his bowels. Just one word, he thought, and he’d happily follow Sherlock into exile and what looked like certain death, leaving his pregnant wife behind. But then, death wasn’t ambiguous, and he needed some clarity in his life.  
Then Sherlock was back, and so, apparently was Moriarty. In this strange, topsy-turvy world he’d lived in since meeting Sherlock, death apparently was not so clear.  
Neither was marriage or fatherhood.  
It took less than a week after Moriarty’s reappearance for Mary to disappear, leaving only a note telling John he needn’t feel responsible for the baby. It wasn’t his. And since she had married him under a false identity, the marriage wasn’t valid; she suggested he get Mycroft to sort it.  
It was the last line that stung: “I really wanted to love you, John.”  
It stung because John knew it was true. He felt the same. He had wanted to love Mary and the life marriage to her represented in his mind: a home, and children. A stable professional life. A chance to get right all those things his own family had gotten wrong.  
But he had always loved his mad detective more, and the first thing John had done that day was pack his bag and move back to Baker Street.  
That, John Watson realized, was his point of clarity. When nothing else in his life made sense, there was always Sherlock, all pale skin and eyes and dark curls. The attraction he felt that first night and locked away after Sherlock’s rejection never faded; it grew stronger, like a hunger or a thirst that is never satisfied.  
John Watson was not an ambiguous man. He loved … he needed … Sherlock Holmes. On that point he was clear, and now that he had made up his mind, it was beyond time to make his move.


	2. Sherlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock gets some air and considers John Watson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback appreciated.

Sherlock Holmes might be a ridiculous man, but there was nothing ambiguous about him. He was all light and dark, starlight and night sky, with very little in between.  
People knew where they stood with Sherlock Holmes because he told them, immediately and in great detail, letting everyone in earshot know the things they would prefer to keep private or disclose only to intimate friends.  
Doing so, Sherlock found, meant that no one wanted to be intimate -- in any sense of the word -- with him, and liked it that way, calling himself a “high-functioning sociopath” to build his walls even higher. Caring was not an advantage, and sentiment was a chemical defect found on the losing side. Sherlock Holmes did not lose.  
*****  
Then John Watson had followed Mike Stamford into the lab at Bart’s, smiled and offered his phone. Sherlock thought he would put him off with his string of deductions, especially the bit about his limp being psychosomatic, but best to put an end to these things early. But John hadn’t appeared offended, even showed up at 221B despite the theatrical wink Sherlock threw at him, hoping (and not hoping at the same time) that the suggestion of flirtation would be enough for the military man to flee.  
It wasn’t. John Watson never did as Sherlock expected. He was more loyal, more brave, more devoted to Sherlock’s well-being than anyone else in his life. But he wasn’t blind; he criticised the messes Sherlock made, he scolded him when he hurt people’s feelings or manipulated them in ways John thought unnecessary.  
Sherlock stretched his legs in front of him and tilted his head back, searching for warmth from the weak sun, and considered when John Watson had become necessary to him. It had happened quickly, he thought, with John well on his way to becoming a permanent feature by the time they took Sebastian’s case. Certainly, by then he would not tolerate John being harmed in any way because of him.  
Sherlock drew the cool air in through his nose, wondering what it was about “getting air” that John found so calming. John was always going out for air when he found something upsetting.  
Sherlock opened his eyes and looked around the park, pausing to observe the people walking past his bench. He did not find this comforting, not at all, without John.  
But John was the reason he was upset, and Sherlock did not know what to do, so he had decided to walk in John’s shoes. Well, he said shoes. John’s path, more like it.  
The park bench wasn’t the best place to go into his mind palace, Sherlock knew. The hard back and sides dug into his shoulder blades and thighs, and there were too many people wandering by. But he had to cast his mind back to the early days of their friendship, to find what it was that drew them together, what had made John want to live with him.  
So he steepled his fingers and closed his eyes and trusted to Mycroft and the CCTV to keep him safe, and thought back to their early cases.  
John had not been angry with him about the Chinese gangsters kidnapping him, had become even more involved in the cases, had drawn the eye of Moriarty. It was, once again, intolerable that John be put in danger. But once again, Sherlock, thought, John surprised him. It wasn’t that the threat to his life didn’t faze him; John was as frightened as anyone would be when a madman wrapped him in Semtex. It was that he was more frightened for Sherlock, tried to save Sherlock at the expense of himself.  
Well. John Watson was a romantic, and dying for one’s friend would be the ultimate sacrifice for a romantic hero.  
But Sherlock was not a romantic, and he needed a live John Watson. Why could John not understand that? That was why he had jumped from Bart’s, after all, to remove the threat to John. Yes, yes, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade too, but John was his primary concern.  
That was also one of the reasons why he sent John back to Mary: she killed people, but she wouldn’t kill John as long as he loved her.  
Odd that she left him, and now he was pining in 221B and Sherlock didn’t know what to do.  
The thing was, John had done nothing to upset him. Not since he had wed Mary, a move he had made with Sherlock standing by his side, his “best man” and support system. Not since he had gone back to Mary at Sherlock’s insistence.  
If he was honest with himself -- and Sherlock was always honest with himself -- he knew that he had hurt John more than John had ever hurt him, and he had done it without John’s willing participation. He hadn’t understood what it would do to John for him to jump from the roof in front of him, to not share his plan.  
Still, when Mary left, John had moved back home immediately. That had to mean something.  
The thing was, John wasn’t talking. John, the man who told him his behavior was “a bit not good” just a day after meeting him, who had never hesitated to tell him what to do, sat quietly in his chair, either tea or scotch on the table next to him. He went to the surgery, he stopped at the ASDA on the way home if they needed milk or bread, he made himself dinner and he sat.  
So Sherlock had to leave the flat to think, and he came to the park, where John used to come for air.  
******  
The best times he and John had, Sherlock thought, were after the pool and before he left. At first, John kept dating his silly girlfriends, but even that petered out after a while, and he took fewer and fewer shifts at the surgery. Mostly, he blogged about Sherlock, ran errands for Sherlock, went on cases with Sherlock. He called Sherlock amazing and brilliant and an annoying dick and told him when to say thank you. John had behaved a bit oddly about Irene Adler -- apparently he appreciated brilliance in Sherlock, but not in anybody else -- and about the events at Baskerville, but it had been wonderful to have someone he trusted, someone he believed cared about him more than anything. It was the thought of coming back to John that kept Sherlock alive during his time away.  
Sherlock turned away from the dark corridor in his mind palace where he locked those memories away; the less he thought about that time, the better.  
When he came back, he didn’t find his John Watson in his chair at 221B, drinking tea and complaining about the chip-and-pin machine. He found a fairly successful GP, running a suburban surgery, proposing to a woman who baked horrible bread and wearing a mustache that made him look 10 years older.  
He found a man who looked like a widower, who attacked him out of rage for what had been done to him. To him? For him, Sherlock corrected himself.  
As Sherlock returned, so did bits of the old John. He shaved the mustache off after Sherlock told him Mary didn’t like it, he came on cases when he had time, and when the adrenaline ran through his veins the years fell away from his face. So Sherlock tried to find a balance, a way for John to have Mary and his practice and still be Sherlock’s blogger and friend.  
As the images of the months of wedding planning flipped through his mind, Sherlock realized that it never worked, never would have worked. The realization that he came to at the wedding -- that John Watson should be _his_ and no one else’s, and that he belonged to John Watson body and soul, if such a thing existed -- was always there, and Sherlock had hidden that from himself.  
But that wasn’t what John wanted. He had just promised the rest of his life to Mary, and to their soon-to-be progeny, and Sherlock decided the best thing he could do would be to make that happen for John. Even if he had to shut down portions of his Mind Palace from time to time with heroin so as not to go stark raving mad.  
He did his best, he really did, but the long, slow crack-up, not to mention the gunshot wound to the chest, was agonizing. Now John was sitting in his chair not talking to him, not scolding him, not telling him to eat or to sleep or that he was brilliant, and Sherlock wondered what he should do.  
Tell John that he was free to go, that he had no responsibility for Sherlock? That was true, of course, but John always seemed to think taking care of Sherlock was very much in his jurisdiction, and Sherlock did not want that to happen.  
Tell John that he was the most important thing in Sherlock’s world, and he couldn’t live without him, and could he please act like he cared again? Also true, but pathetic, and he’d said most of it at the wedding.  
Tell John to stop being such a pathetic sod and get his arse out of the chair? Rude, arrogant and cold. But then he was a rude, arrogant and cold.  
Sherlock opened his eyes, noted that the sun had dropped further in the sky and the air had cooled further. At some point, he had buried his hands in his coat pockets and his chin in his scarf. He stood, glanced at the nearest CCTV camera and gave it a nod.  
Time to be Sherlock Holmes.


	3. On the Threshhold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock meet on the doorstep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback appreciated! Not beta'd or Britpicked, so let me know if you see any glaring errors.

It was only a few moments later that Sherlock stood at the door of 221B Baker St. Before he could draw the key from his pocket, he heard steps clattering down the stairs inside, moving quickly, not taking them at the deliberate pace John had assumed after Mary left him.  
In a hurry, then. Couldn’t be late for a shift at the surgery; it would surely be closed at this time No need to hurry to go to the shops or to pick up takeaway. Someone else hurt?  
Sherlock stepped back from the door as John pulled it open and started to step outside, pulling up short when he saw Sherlock.  
“What are you doing here?” he asked.  
“I live here,” Sherlock said, taking a moment to observe John further. His best friend didn’t look upset, Sherlock thought. The colour in his face had improved, if only from his jog down the stairs, and the lines in his face looked shallower. He was breathing a bit quickly (just from taking the stairs so fast?) and his eyes were a clear dark blue, with none of the shadows that had clouded them for, well, years. He looked excited, Sherlock thought, maybe a bit nervous, maybe a bit hopeful. A date? So soon after Mary? His plan to tell his friend -- his flatmate -- to stop wallowing might be too late. “Where are you going? Surely you don’t have a shift at the surgery now?”  
“Sherlock, it’s Sunday evening,” John said, a hint of indulgence in his tone. “The surgery is closed.  
“Oh, then a pint at the pub? Stamford or Lestrade?” Sherlock inquired, even though he knew better. He could smell John’s aftershave and he was wearing his date shoes and the black jacket that showed off his trim torso and strong legs; shaving in the afternoon and dressing to impress definitely meant romantic hopes, in Sherlock’s experience of John.  
But it still didn’t make sense, Sherlock thought. Even if John had met someone at work, or on the tube or in the shops on the way home, he hadn’t looked like he was harboring hopes of anything when Sherlock had told him he was going out for air a few hours earlier. What happened to change his demeanor so thoroughly?  
“A pint would be fine,” John said. “But I was coming to look for you. Where have you been? Was there a case?”  
“No, I went out ‘to get some air,’” Sherlock said, putting air quotes in his voice. “I wanted to think, and you were in the sitting room.”  
A bit of a non sequitur, but if anyone would understand, John would, Sherlock thought.  
Apparently John understood, perhaps more than Sherlock meant, because the hopeful look dissolved from his face, his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth drooping and his eyes growing more distant.  
“Oh,” John said, then collected himself. “Well, I’m not in the sitting room anymore. I didn’t mean to chase you away, you know. You only had to say and I would leave.”  
John heard the words coming out of his mouth and realized how true they were. Of course he knew Sherlock cared about him, even loved him in some fashion. Of course Sherlock, who was really, really not a sociopath, would not turn him away when he showed up on the doorstep.  
But as hopeful as he had felt moments ago -- had he imagined the light in Sherlock’s eyes when he saw him step out the door? -- he knew he could not trespass on Sherlock’s kindness if he was getting in the way of the work.  
“It’s been kind of you to let me stay here,” John continued. “But it’s probably time for me to move on, anyway.”  
“What? No,” Sherlock actually looked surprised, John thought.  
But Sherlock hadn’t had a case as far as John knew since he’d come home, and he’d even kept his experiments more or less limited to John’s work hours and away from the kettle and John’s mug. If he’d thought John wouldn’t notice that he was getting in the way, his estimation of John’s observational skills must have dropped even further over the past few weeks.  
“I want you to get out of the flat,” Sherlock said. “But not _move_ out. I just think you would be better off if you got out a bit.”  
“I get it,” John said. “I’ll try to stay out of your way a bit more. And I will move along, I promise. I just need to sort the house. Maybe the landlord can find a new tenant or I can relet it. Then I’ll be able to afford something else.”  
John still looked like sad-John, like the John in the surveillance pictures Mycroft had shown him from his time away. Sherlock remembered Mycroft and Lestrade and John himself saying that after he moved out of Baker Street, he just sat at home for all those months, at least until Mary came along.  
“No,” Sherlock insisted. “This is your home. I want you to stay. But I seem to recall you telling Mrs. Hudson that you were not the sitting-down type, and lately that’s all you do. So it’s good you’re going out. Although I’m surprised you’ve got a date so soon.”  
“Sherlock, I told you I was looking for _you_ ,” John said. “So soon for a date after Mary? Maybe. I don’t even know if I have a date. You never said whether you wanted that pint.”  
John was smiling again. Sherlock heard it in his voice before looked up from the pavement to see his face. It wasn’t the full-on incandescent John-smile that Sherlock craved like a flower craved sunlight, but it was enough to transform John’s face from the sadness that had been there moments ago.  
“A date?” Sherlock said, smirking a bit. “You mean where people who like each other go out and have fun together?”  
John’s smile broadened, and then he put his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders, rose up on his toes, and brushed a kiss across Sherlock’s lips.  
“I mean like that,” John said, settling back to his feet but keeping his hands on Sherlock. “That all right?”  
“Oh, God, yes,” Sherlock breathed, dropping his head to seek John’s mouth again.  
John met him halfway, his arms tightening about Sherlock’s shoulders as his hands worked their way up to Sherlock’s hair.  
Sherlock brought his arms around John, running his hands up and down John’s back and skimming over the top of arse. John used his hands to tilt Sherlock’s head just a bit, slotting their lips together and using his tongue to nudge Sherlock’s mouth open.  
It was over much too soon for Sherlock. John broke away, now grinning as widely as Sherlock had ever seen.  
“So,” he said. “How about that date? Or would you rather stay in?”  
“Oh, John,” Sherlock said. “Let’s go home.”  
******  
Sherlock Holmes was a ridiculous man, and often a rude, arrogant and cold man. But John Watson was the sun that warmed his heart, and when the clouds that had obscured John’s warmth and light cleared, Sherlock found that the world had shifted around him.  
John Watson was not an ambiguous man, and John Watson was a decisive man. He decided to act on what he wanted and make his feelings clear to Sherlock, and he got the best answer he could have hoped for. As dusk fell on Baker Street, he turned and followed his lodestar up the stairs and home.


End file.
